


No Matter the Odds or the Consequences

by TUNiU



Series: Let's See How Many Endgame Fix-its I Will Write [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:35:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: In this fic I fix almost everything that went wrong with Endgame. See, Steve has the power of time travel and as Bucky warns, he's taking all the stupid with him. Steve damns the time continuum consequences just like in the movie, only this time he does it in a way I like. Also there is m/m kissing.





	No Matter the Odds or the Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> This will be the 3rd fic where I fix Endgame.

Here's the thing. Steve goes to return the stones to their original times months after Stark's funeral.  That's enough time to see Pepper nearly fall apart except for the fact she has to raise Morgan as a single mother and as heiress to the Stark Fortune. (Already the vultures are circling, lawyers and interested parties who think Morgan should be raised with like minded children in a more secure environment.)  It's enough time to see Peter Parker close himself off from the other Avengers. He goes back home to his Aunt and doesn't answer their calls. It's so worrying that Happy takes it upon himself to go check on the boy. It's enough time to read the reports of everyone who was there that day, the day Tony killed Thanos, and analyze the situation, play the what-if game.

* * *

(Steve has a nebulous hint of an idea forming in his mind.)

* * *

It takes months, but Doctors Banner and Pym rebuild the time machine, and recreate enough Pym particles for the voyages, (more than enough, they don't want a repeat of the Camp Lehigh heist).

Bucky finds Steve, just sitting on the deck outside, waiting for the final touches on his voyage. The stones and Thor's old hammer are waiting to return to the time they came. Bucky sits next to him and says "I remember that face, that's the face you wear when you're going to do something stupid."

"...yeah," Steve admits.

"Can I help or do you need someone to stay behind and explain what happens when you don't come back?"

Steve turns to Bucky. "I'm coming back, Buck."

"Why? Your girl's waiting for you," Bucky gestures to the time machine and by extension Peggy Carter over half a century ago.

"She's not my girl anymore. She had a family, a husband and kids. I can't just erase that."

"So what stupid thing are you planning?"

Steve looks around dramatically. "Don't you know Stark's walls have ears, Buck?" They're sitting on Stark's porch. Now that the Avengers compound is destroyed, Stark's house by the lake is the only place with the necessary computing power to complete the time machine.

Bucky catches that most vital fact. "Really?"

"I have to try."

* * *

When Bruce and Pym outfit Steve with the Pym particles and the nano suit, he asks for spares. It's dangerous times he's going to, Asgard will be on alert after Rocket was chased, SHIELD will be looking for Loki, hell even the Red Skull might take a pot shot at him on Vormir. There's no way to know. Bruce hands him the extra particles, but he holds onto Steve's hand for a long moment, staring into his face and Steve knows that Bruce knows.

When he stands on the time machine platform and he holds onto the hammer and the case with the stones, he looks Bucky in the eyes, and tells everyone to "Wait!"

"What's wrong," Bruce demands.

Steve steps towards Bucky, he grabs him by the neck, gives him a quick kiss on the lips and keeps their foreheads together for a long moment. "That's for thinking I was going to leave you behind," Steve tells Bucky as Sam crows with gleeful laughter.

"Okay, I'm ready," Steve says when he's back on the platform.

"Right," Bruce stares from Steve to Bucky for a second.

And then Steve is flying through time.

* * *

He returns the stones in no particular order. The jumps don't take more or less traversal time depending on how many years apart they are. There's no need to plan the voyage out, it doesn’t matter what stone goes home first.

In Asgard, Lady Jane is sleeping when he returns the aether to her body. On Morag, the magnetic field absorbs the cage with the power stone. As soon as he arrives on Vormir, the soul stone rattles and shakes in the case. When Steve opens the case the stone zooms away into the sky. New York is easy: he puts the mind stone back in the scepter and waits until Fury is alone after yelling at everyone for letting Loki escape; for the time stone, he just knocks on the door of 221a Bleeker Street.

For the tesseract, he finds himself in 1970 Camp Lehigh and for a moment as he walks by Peggy Carter's office door, he wonders what if. What if he went back to 1945, knocked on Peggy's door? He would have to tell her the truth, Howard too. Howard would need to keep looking for Steve in the arctic so he could find the tesseract. Could Steve keep quiet as the SSR partnered with Armin Zola, as HYDRA wormed its way into SHIELD, as Bucky became the Winter Soldier? Could he really stand by and let history happen the way it happened or would he be too tempted? The right word in the right ear at the right time and Tony Stark's parents live past December 1991.

* * *

Tony begged Steve to not change Morgan. Tony made it so the Vanished came back five years later so Morgan could exist: half of all life in the universe, for his daughter.

If Steve warns SHIELD, if Steve rescues Bucky, do Howard and Maria influence Tony enough that he never meets Pepper Potts, that he never gets kidnapped in Afghanistan, that he never becomes Iron Man, that he never has Morgan?

Tony begged Steve.

* * *

Steve places the tesseract back in it's secure vault and travels back to the future. It's no good. He can't stay in the past. Either he would change everything because he can't stand aside and let the bad things happen, or he would stand aside and betray everything he ever believed in.

So he goes home...

(Tony loved Morgan with every fiber of his being. He changed the universe to make sure she existed.)

...a few months ago.

* * *

The Avengers Compound is still standing when he arrives. It's just a few days before they all go off to retrieve the stones. They're still planning the who and where and when. Steve's suit retracts and he strides in like he belongs, like he isn’t already here. Tony and Bruce and Scott are putting the final touches on the time machine. Steve waits until he can catch Tony alone. He only needs a few minutes.

"Hey Tony, I was thinking about this time travel stuff--"

"Well don't hurt yourself," Tony snarks at him.

"--I don’t think Nebula should come." Steve finishes.

"Nebula may be his daughter," Tony snaps, "but she hates Thanos. She's not going to betray us."

"Of course not. But she may not have a choice. She's more machine than organic. He built her. Could he hack her?" Steve knows exactly how it happens, how Thanos hacked her memory. He’s trying to be circumspect, like he’s the Steve who belongs and he just had an idea. He’s so tempted to just tell Tony and damn the consequences.

"He's not even going to know she's around. That's the whole point, we sneak the stones away before he notices." Tony is walking away, empty coffee cup in hand and Steve can feel time clenching around him. Taunting him. Telling him he won't succeed.

"Does her memory automatically sync and backup with her cloud?" In the days and weeks following Thanos's attack on the Compound, Nebula explained what happened with her memory on back on Morag.

Tony stops, he spins around to face Steve. "What did you say?"

"If Nebula's memory automatically syncs with her younger self, then her younger self that is still loyal to Thanos would tell him what she sees."

"No, I got that." He approaches Steve, cautiously. "How do you know that?"

Steve rolls his eyes, prevaricating. "I've been in the future over ten years, I know how cloud accounts work."

"No." Tony says.

"No?"

"Do we lose?" Tony asks.

"What?"

"Do. We. Lose?" Tony asks again. When Steve says nothing, Tony says, "Friday, activate Steve's suit."

The nano particles encase Steve in his suit. "Shit," he says as the visor drops around his face. Steve deactivates the suit.

"So, Nebula's memory syncs and Thanos gets wind of our plan. How bad does it go?"

Oh to hell with it, Steve thinks. Loki escapes with the tesseract back in 2012 and time is still standing. "Bruce brings everyone back with the stones. Thanos jumps from 2014 to now. He destroys the compound, lots of people die. You die killing Thanos and his army."

Tony blinks. He opens his mouth, says nothing. He blinks again. "Well, that's not going to happen now."

"Good."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Anything else you need to tell us?"

"Nope, that was it."

"Okay, then." Tony nods then walks off down the hall. "Hey, blue meanie!" he shouts, "change of plans."

* * *

When Steve goes home, months after Tony Stark's funeral, it's to a future that had no funeral. Tony stands next to Bruce at the time machine controls, monitoring, making sure nothing went wrong with Steve’s voyage. No one has any idea that Tony wasn’t originally here. Steve isn’t going to tell anyone. He just has to act like nothing is different, like the world didn’t just spend months mourning a hero, like Morgan didn’t cry herself to sleep without her father.

As Steve reappears Sam is still grinning his ass off at Bucky, who stands there, arms crossed.

"Hi," Steve tells him.

"Don't you 'hi' me punk." Bucky tells him. He stomps up the platform so he is toe to toe with Steve, "You call that a kiss. I been waiting since 1941 and that's the kiss you give me." Bucky grabs Steve by the hips and shoulders. He kisses him softly, a few gentle nips. Then Bucky dips Steve over his metal arm and kisses him like he's been waiting since 1941. Sam hollers and claps in glee.

* * *

Later, much much much later, Steve asks Tony and T'Challa if it's possible to make another vibranium shield. He has a mantle to pass on to Sam Wilson, and every Captain America needs a shield.

* * *

After Bucky has finally released him from that kiss, after Sam has finished cat-calling, Tony approaches Steve, thanks him and swears him to secrecy. Steve wasn’t going to tell anyone anyways.


End file.
